Here By Me
by K. East
Summary: We were real people, you know. LJ Based on the song by 3 Doors Down.


Here By Me

_I hope you're doing fine out there without me  
_'_cause I'm not doing so good without you_

We were real people, you know.

We weren't always like this - a story on the tongues of our peers, a made-up image of the dream couple. We were real. Everyone seems to forget that.

We had fights, we had inside jokes, we had our own private bubble when we kissed and when we cuddled and when we held hands, but that wasn't all. We had our own lives, a third dimension, we had friends and we had insecurities and I guess we still have them now, they've just faded away.

_the things I've thought you'd never know about me  
__were the things I guess you always understood_

It didn't start the way everyone assumes. I wasn't stalking her, she didn't harbor a secret love for me, we didn't leap on each other in a confusion of anger and lust. It started with a date.

"You - er - you look nice," I said nervously, though she was just in her everyday school robes. It was a casual thing, a hi-do-you-want-to-go-to-Hogsmeade date, no pressure and lots of friends around to make it less awkward.

She smiled and said, "Thank you," that simply. And I followed her onto the carriage.

_so how could I have been blind for all these years_

It was the beginning of the end, I guess.

We kept it a secret for the longest time, just the two of us. I guess I was afraid that if something ended up going wrong, I'd have to explain to Sirius and Remus and Peter why The Perfect Girl For Me suddenly was Not So Perfect.

One day she came to me, after everyone else had gone to sleep, and she sat next to me by the fire without looking at me. She said, "Can we talk?"

My heart skipped a beat because the words _Can we talk_ almost never signify a good thing. According to Sirius, it either means she's going to break up with you or she's pregnant, and I could be sure it wasn't the latter.

So I said, "Yeah, of course we can," and to my surprise she curled up into my side, stared into the fire, and didn't say a word.

"I thought we were talking," I said eventually.

"I know," she said. She paused. "I'm scared."

"Of what?"

Her hand, which had been loosely entwined with mine, gripped a little tighter and she said, "I guess I'm scared this is all a dream."

I looked at her then. The flames were reflecting off her hair and her eyes, and I kissed her slowly. "It's real," I said as I pulled away, and I hoped my hardest that it was.

_guess I only see the truth through all this fear  
__and living without you, and everything I had in this world  
__and all that I'll ever be, it could all fall down around me_

We had sex once and I made her cry.

It's funny because people assumed we were a really goody-goody couple, that we were waiting for marriage because there's no doubt we'll get married. Rather, there _was_ no doubt. Still others think we must've been raging fanatics in bed, they say our chemistry is so blatant that we couldn't possibly ignore it if we wanted to.

I guess it was a little bit of both. I had no idea she was divided about it, or maybe I wouldn't have gone so far. But she told me it was okay.

"It's fine," she said as I pulled away from the kiss to look at her. My hands lingered on the zipper of her jeans.

I glanced around my dormitory. No one would be in for hours. "Are - are you sure?"

She hesitated for just a second. "It's _fine_," she insisted, and kissed me then, so I didn't have second thoughts.

The next morning she came to me and she was crying.

"I'm sorry," she said, her eyes red, "I don't want to do it again. I wasn't ready. It's not that you did something wrong, I'm just not ready."

I pulled her close in a hug, said in her ear, "I'm sorry. It's okay. We'll wait. It's okay."

It's as if by saying _it's okay_ everything really would be okay.

_just as long as I have you right here by me_

After that, we talked. Just talked. Sometimes we kissed, but never for long, and I didn't press her to do anything else. She says that's the one place I didn't go wrong, that's the thing she was grateful for about our relationship.

We'd spend hours on end discussing life, other people, school, anything. I told her that Sirius had once hated Remus, a secret no one else knows.

"He was raised that way, to hate people like him," I said, rubbing circles into her palm with my thumb. She looked almost downcast at the idea, and I kept trying to coax a response out of her. "Sirius didn't say anything because he knew Peter and I wanted Remus as a friend. He didn't mention it at all until last year, and just to me."

"But now they're thick as thieves, right?" she asked, gazing at me with innocent, beautiful eyes. I was enraptured. I couldn't keep my friends on my mind.

"Right," I said. "Now they're thick as thieves."

She smiled, and leaned into my chest. I felt so perfect then, like the protective man I was supposed to be. If anyone had seen us, curled up in the armchair together, the girls would've called it cute. The guys would've called me whipped. But I didn't mind, because I wasn't there to impress anyone. Neither was Lily. We were in real, actual, dynamic love, and since nothing lasts forever we were determined to enjoy our time together.

I kissed her hand and murmured, "I love you."

She smiled again and closed her eyes, and she curled an arm around my waist. "I love you too."

Everything felt perfect, if only for that one moment.

_I can't take another day without you  
_'_cause baby, I could never make it on my own  
__I've been waiting so long just to hold you  
__and to be back in your arms where I belong_

I never, ever looked at another girl when I was with Lily, you know.

Oh, sure, I had plenty of opportunities, and I would've gotten away with it, too, but I was in love with her. When you're in love with someone, they're the most beautiful person in the world. It wouldn't have mattered if she was four feet tall and weighed 350 pounds, I - I loved her.

And I made sure she knew it. Or at least I thought I did.

The first time I realized she was insecure was when she came to me and she said, "James, you've got so many pretty girls on the Quidditch team, and in your classes, and in your clique. How come you aren't dating one of them?"

Just like that. We'd been together for six months.

"Because I'm dating _you_," I said matter-of-factly, and I turned away from my friends to look at her, really look at her. She frowned, and I caught her hand and held it as if I knew what was coming.

I wish - no, I'm glad I didn't know.

"I mean… why aren't you dating one of them instead of me?" She sat beside me, tried to tug her fingers away.

My heart stopped. "Because I like you," I said quickly. "You're smart and funny and I've fallen in love with you."

I saw her watching me, trying to convince herself it was true. I knew my friends were trying their hardest not to listen and that if things got any heavier Sirius would lead them all away - but other people were there. Waiting.

I guess that's when we stopped being people and started being gossip.

"I don't know what to do," she confessed. "I love you. I really do. But I'm different from what you want me to be, I'm different from the kind of people you like -"

I was silent. I didn't know what to say.

_sorry I can't always find the words to say_

"James? James. Hey, mate, are you okay?!"

_but everything I've ever known gets swept away_

"Hey, it's been a week now. Why don't we go get you a drink, cheer you up, eh?"

_inside of your love and everything I had in this world  
__and all that I'll ever be, it could all fall down around me_

"You'll be alright over the summer, right? I won't be there, I guess, so then… look, it's just something that happens, mate. Write me."

_just as long as I have you right here by me_

I guess the way my friends dealt with it was the only way they could. They weren't sure what I was going through, and I couldn't really explain it to them. They didn't know what I wanted - did I want to talk about it? Be alone for a while? Brush it off and move on? Honestly, I didn't know either.

There was the sense of betrayal for weeks, the little voice that said _she didn't really love you_. Because if she had, why would she do something like that, without any warning?

But she _had _given me warning, plenty of it. The nervousness when we kissed, the quietness whenever I got back from a Quidditch game and the hopeful eyes that followed, the overly cheerful letters she sent over Easter holiday, after I'd sent none whatsoever.

I was just blind.

And I was devastated, then, after the break-up. It was the end of a belief in fairy tales I didn't even know I had. I had given her my virginity. She had given me hers. We were supposed to be together _forever_. I mentioned this to my friends just once and Sirius went and got laid the next night, as if to prove how naïve I was.

Summer, to put it simply, was hell.

_as the days grow long I see  
__that time is standing still for me  
__when you're not here_

I run into her a year later. We're both nineteen, working for the Ministry, and she just has transferred to my department. The confrontation is inevitable.

"James," she says nervously, as she approaches me in the break room. She's beautiful, just a little bit older and her hair a little bit darker, but other than that she looks just the same as she always did.

"Lily," I say, and it comes out in the strangest tone, one _I_ don't even understand. I'm a little different now, a little taller, a little more tired. Life's different. Sirius and I have both taken up smoking in the hopes that it'll roughen up our voices a little bit, like the girls like, and now I wear robes everywhere I go because I'm hardly ever in the Muggle sector of Britain anymore.

I feel changed, this feels changed, but there's still that nuance of nostalgia as she sits next to me.

"How are you?" she asks carefully, watching me with those same almond-shaped eyes I fell for not so long ago. I shrug, trying to stay casual, trying not to point out the elephant in the room, our awkwardness.

"I've been better," I say. Understatement of the year. I haven't just been better, I've been - brilliantly, universally better. I've been at the top of the world and now I'm just… average. "How, erm, how are you?"

"Oh, you know," she says, looking away.

No. I don't know. I haven't seen you in a year. Haven't talked to you in a year. Haven't kissed you or held you or gotten any sort of response from you, some sign you still love me, in a fucking year.

I tell her this, verbatim, and she sighs and looks suddenly very tired, as tired as I feel.

_sorry I can't always find the words to say  
__everything I've ever known gets swept away  
__inside of your love everything I had in this world  
__and all that I'll ever be, it could all fall down around me  
__just as long as I have you right here by me_

For the longest time, we are silent. And then she looks at me and she is transformed. I see the Lily I loved, the Lily who went on dates with me and kissed me on the cheek when she was happy and asked me to hold her when she was sad. She looks at me like we're seventeen again and blissfully oblivious to the rest of the world and she says, "We're real people, you know? We weren't always like this."

Oh, trust me, love. I know.

_and everything I had in this world…_

* * *

**Author's Note:** Wanted to do a songfic, wanted to do something a tad different. This is based on the great song _Here By Me_ by 3 Doors Down. Check it out!

Please review this. I feel really happy when my oneshots get reviews because I put a lot of work into them. :D


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